Love

On Alma Ave July 7, 2010

I used to live here by myself. It was an open space with a couch in the living room and a bed in the bedroom. it’s been 4 years since I first moved in and the furniture has grown. I am now sitting on a comfortable glider. My feet no longer hurt because they are elevated. As I write, I rock back and forth. Now, my one bedroom apartment houses my husband and stepdaughter. She sleeps in the small room which was once a walk in closet. We are moving things around for my mami’s arrival. She will be on a bed in the living room surrounded by windows and plants. I am getting my mami used to the fact that I will probably not have lil Omar in a crib but in one of these:

I am nesting, rearranging, purging, selling, gifting for all of us to fit in this place. There are homes that are filled with families bigger than ours. They all sleep in the same room, eat in the same room, do their work in the same room. Perhaps you don’t find these homes in the Unites States very often but they exists in many, many places.

I have a deadline to finish my book by the end of the summer but my writing is so scattered. I realize my thoughts need to be more linear. If I continue to write the way that I am writing it won’t flow. Each chapter stands on its own, which can be a good thing but it needs more work. I am back in the beginning. Maybe I won’t have to write chapters all over again but I need to figure out a better way. I can now spend my days writing. I am thankful but I still have mouths to feed and a house to clean and my life is so different now. My belly is huge and I forget about it when I open truck doors and try to get through narrow spaces.

Somewhere in this living room I also have to make space for the tub to give birth in. Every day I pray that I am able to give birth at home. I won’t be able to stand the lights in the hospital or nurses coming in and out of the room tempting me with drugs. I want to learn songs to sing through contractions. I hope it’s cool that day. I hope it’s in the day. I want to drink coconut water and have my tailbone massaged. My pregnancy isn’t that bad but there are moments of unconformability. I just think this is God’s way of preparing me for the labor. I read stories of labors lasting two or three days. I tell Adam to keep me at home unless my midwife says there is trouble and we need to go to the hospital. I want my son to be born in water, inshaAllah. I want to hold him on my bare chest, look into his eyes and cry, inshaAllah.

He moves and dances in my belly. I write for him right now. I write because I promised myself I would have a book done before I had a child. I want it to be his gift. Mami and Papi tried their best. They really did. Sometimes they wanted to teach me in ways I couldn’t really learn. They wanted me to learn through their mistakes not through their efforts to make change and do better. There was an expectation that I will get things right because i saw them do things wrong. I have done things better than them but there are things that I have repeated. I can’t teach my children through the same way. I want them to learn through example. I want to be a good mother. A mother that uses all the gifts given to her and shares them with her loved ones. I want to write for my children so they will be able to do what their heart tells them.